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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25922455">it's just beginning (a new adventure)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma'>shineyma</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(kind of. not really.), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post-Season/Series Finale</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 08:40:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,672</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25922455</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Grant is waiting just on the other side of the door, arms crossed and one shoulder propped against the wall.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“Did I mishear that,” he asks as she pulls the door closed, “or did you kill me off somewhere in there?”</em>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jemma Simmons/Grant Ward</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>93</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>it's just beginning (a new adventure)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Ta-da! Week THIRTY THREE, y'all! And what a week it is.</p><p>As you probably know, AOS ended this week. You know what else ended this week? My twenties! I turned 30 on Thursday and tbh I'm a lot happier with the end of my twenties than I am the end of AOS. There are vagueish spoilers for the finale herein - I didn't watch it, but I did google to find out what happened out of some morbid sense of curiosity. Spoiler alert: I did not enjoy.</p><p>BUT I hope y'all enjoy this! And if you missed it, be sure to check out <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/13739259/chapters/31568901">the fic JD updated for my birthday</a>. It is the best and deserves ALL the love and comments so she's motivated to write more.</p><p>Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review! &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“…and Piper, Flint, and Yoyo went on lots of adventures with the LMD version of Piper’s friend Davis,” Jemma says. It’s one final test of her hypothesis that the children are too deep into sleep to hear her; they never let her get away with a vague brush-off when there’s an opening to demand another story.</p><p>Jane, Sara, and Peter are silent, their breathing deep and even. Not so much as a single eye cracks open to prompt her for further detail on the exact nature of the adventures in question.</p><p>Hypothesis tested and conclusion confirmed: they’re finally, finally properly asleep.</p><p>“And they all lived happily ever after,” she murmurs, even as she leans over to kiss each of their foreheads.</p><p>She <em>should</em> pick Peter up and carry him to his own bed—they’ve been trying for weeks now to break him of the habit of sneaking in to sleep with his sisters—but doesn’t have the heart. Her own childhood was so lonely; she can’t find it in herself to put space between her children against their will.</p><p>Not to mention…he’s such a little boy, still, and his room is so big. She does hate to have him all alone in there.</p><p>Decision made, she leaves Peter where he is, tucked between his big sisters. One more kiss for each of them (her sweet children—so inquisitive, so bright, so fascinated with stories (real or fictional) about her old team), and then she leaves them to their sleep.</p><p>Grant is waiting just on the other side of the door, arms crossed and one shoulder propped against the wall.</p><p>“Did I mishear that,” he asks as she pulls the door closed, “or did you kill me off somewhere in there?”</p><p>Jemma gives him a smile. “I also married Fitz.”</p><p>“Oh, come on,” he complains. He’s careful to keep his voice low, in deference to their sleeping children, but she starts down the hall anyway. “I said I was sorry about dinner.”</p><p>“Did you?” she asks pleasantly. “I must have missed it amidst all the excuses.”</p><p>He sighs, very heavily. “I <em>didn’t know it was a trap</em>.”</p><p>“Perhaps that will teach you not to go on missions when we have plans,” she says, though she doesn’t hold out much hope. She’s found it easy enough, since their marriage, to retreat from the field and consign herself to her lab and administrative duties, but Grant is a specialist down to his bones. He’ll never be happy with a less active role.</p><p>“I would’ve been home in plenty of time if—”</p><p>“But you weren’t,” she interrupts.</p><p>“Baby—”</p><p>“One dinner,” she says over him. “Just <em>one</em>. That was all I asked for our anniversary. One, single night where I could have <em>Grant</em> and not Director Ward.”</p><p>She means to continue past their bedroom and go on to the living room, the better to emphasize how displeased with him she is, but somehow—she can’t quite track the movement—Grant catches and redirects her, and she finds herself pressed against the wall inside their bedroom instead.</p><p>“I know,” he murmurs, eyes dark with genuine remorse, “and I’m sorry. I promise I’ll make it up to you.” He frowns down at her, soulful look gone just as quickly as it appeared. “But joking about marrying Fitz is taking payback <em>way</em> too far.”</p><p>“Not just marrying him,” she informs him pertly. “We had destined, star-crossed love that was pivotal to the fate of the universe. And a little girl named Alya.”</p><p>Grant grimaces. “Not funny.”</p><p>“Who’s joking?” she asks. “You know he’d have me in an—”</p><p>He cuts her off with a harsh, deep kiss, punishing and possessive in equal measure, that has her toes curling inside her slippers. His firm grip on the back of her neck sends warmth all up and down her spine.</p><p>The things he does to her, even after eight years and three children.</p><p>“Not funny,” he says again, hoarsely, when he breaks the kiss.</p><p>“Perhaps not,” she agrees. Lies, really. Grant’s paranoia in regards to Fitz—who has only ever been (has only ever <em>wanted</em> to be) as a brother to her—will likely never stop amusing her.</p><p>Still, it was perhaps unkind to tease him so. Especially via a bedtime story to their impressionable children, who will doubtless bring up embarrassing questions at inopportune times as to the exact nature of Jemma’s relationship with Uncle Fitz.</p><p>Oops.</p><p>Ah, well.</p><p>“So,” she says, brushing those thoughts aside. “You’ve upset me by breaking your promise, and I’ve upset you with a joke in poor taste. It seems we both have some making up to do.” She drapes her arms over Grant’s shoulders, toying with the hair at the nape of his neck and enjoying the way it tightens his hold on her. “What do you say we settle this the old fashioned way?”</p><p>His answering grin is slow and heated.</p><p>“I say—” he kisses her once, gently—“you really are a genius.”</p><p>Then, in a move that never fails to thrill her, he picks her up and all but <em>throws</em> her onto the bed. She manages to contain her reaction at first, but when she actually <em>bounces</em> from the force of her landing, she can’t help a girlish giggle.</p><p>Grant crawls into bed after her, and then—well, then she has to cover her mouth, lest her reaction to his very thorough apology wake the children.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Later, apologies given and received and their spat (such as it was) settled, Jemma finds herself thinking of the multiverse theory. Theoretically, in an infinite number of universes, with an infinite number of possibilities, there exists one where her relationship with Fitz became romantic at some point. Where Grant perhaps chose to remain Hydra rather than redeem himself by building SWORD, where Jemma’s bitterness over his initial betrayal blossomed into true hatred rather than forgiveness…</p><p>Curled as she is with her head on Grant’s shoulder and her leg slung over his, she feels more than hears the breath he takes to speak.</p><p>“I’ve been thinking,” he says.</p><p>Sated and content as she is after three orgasms, Jemma kindly refrains from asking whether he’s been thinking about how he might make it to dinner on time tomorrow.</p><p>“About what?” she asks instead.</p><p>His fingers drag through her hair, slow and careful. “About how to stop Peter from sneaking out.”</p><p>“Oh?” His tone is strangely hesitant, and it unsettles her. Loath though she is to leave her comfortable position, she props herself up a bit to meet his gaze properly. “You’ve had an idea?”</p><p>Grant’s face is blank and unreadable, his thoughts tucked away behind a mask of unconcern. Whatever this idea of his is, he either thinks she won’t like it or desperately <em>wants</em> her to like it and fears influencing her reaction. Or both.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says. “If he’s lonely…maybe the key to keeping him out of the girls’ room is to give him company in his.”</p><p>It takes her a moment to realize what he’s suggesting. When she does, her breath catches. “You think we should have another?”</p><p>“I do.”</p><p>Jemma kisses him. Once, twice, and then an attempt at a third that goes awry because she’s too overcome with excitement to pay much mind to what she’s doing, and ends up kissing his bruised jaw instead of his lips.</p><p>“Yes,” she says in lieu of an apology. Her heart is in her throat.</p><p>“Yeah?” Grant asks, grinning.</p><p>“Yes!” she says again. “Yes, yes, <em>yes</em>, let’s have another.”</p><p>He yanks her down to kiss her properly, though it’s not altogether any more successful than her failed third attempt—they’re both beaming, brimming with hope and excitement and far too distracted to have any sort of technique. In the end, they give it up as a bad job and settle for sprawling together, trading thoughts and hopes for what might come next.</p><p>Another child—another new life growing under their hands, another baby, another son or daughter to watch learn and change and <em>live</em>. More sticky mid-breakfast hugs, more bedtime stories, more tantrums and questions and endless repetitions of the alphabet song.</p><p>She can’t wait.</p><p>Halfway through an absent musing on just what she did with the bags of maternity clothes she packed away after Peter was born, Jemma has a realization that prompts her to stop and smack Grant’s shoulder.</p><p>“Ow,” he says mildly. “What was that for?”</p><p>“You prat,” she says, “why didn’t you say anything earlier? We shouldn’t have used a condom.”</p><p>“Condom<em>s</em>,” he corrects, because he’s prideful and smug by nature. “And oops.”</p><p>“Oops, he says,” she mutters to herself, shifting off of him to show her (mostly feigned) displeasure. “That’s a night <em>wasted</em>, Grant.”</p><p>He laughs, unrepentant, and rolls to cover her. “Night’s not over yet, baby.”</p><p>“Someone’s confident,” she says archly.</p><p>“Someone’s knocked you up three times already,” he reminds her, and dips his head for a (this time quite successful) kiss. “Hope you’re ready for round four.”</p><p>He follows the words with a kiss to her neck, and then her collarbone, and then keeps shifting southwards. Jemma entirely loses her train of thought.</p><p>“That,” she says, even as clutches helplessly at his hair, “that is <em>not</em> how babies are made, Grant Ward.”</p><p>“No?” He does something very clever with his fingers, something that has her arching and biting her lip and seeing an entire galaxy’s worth of stars. “Well, it’s been a while. Gimme a minute to remember how it goes.”</p><p>Laughing and moaning at once, overcome by excitement and love and pure, animal <em>want</em>, she agrees to let him do as he will.</p><p>If such a version of herself as the one in the bedtime story exists—one without Grant, without Jane and Sara and Peter—one who lives in a world so dangerous that even one child is a risk, and the suggestion of more would be met with horror rather than excitement—Jemma can only pity her.</p><p>What a horrible, empty life that would be.</p>
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